The goal of an IT assessment is to optimize and create strategies and systems to support them. This assessment’s goals should decrease costs, reduce risk, improve security, ensure a great company culture, and enhance your customers’ experience.
When a contractor knocks on your front door, they always offer you a free inspection. But, where’s the value in this? Is it really an inspection, or is it just another opportunity to quote? To put it simply: it should verify what is or isn’t working.
There are several ways to determine if you need an IT assessment. For example, what would happen in the event of a disaster like an office fire or ransomware hitting your systems? Another common reason for needing an assessment is being unsure how your systems are secure.
Reasons for an IT assessment:
- Employees complain about technology and/or IT support
- You have noticed technological problems impacting customers or your business operations
- Technology problems are causing you to have to pay overtime to meet customer expectations
- You do not know if you have a strategy (or are unsure of what it is.)
- IT keeps you up at night, ridden with anxiety.
Knowing whether you should get an assessment is essential. Recognizing what makes for a good assessment is even more so because a good assessment can be the starting block for greater things. A good assessment should be comprehensive, reliable, valid, and free of bias. “Assess to onboard” is a failed philosophy and an immoral practice. An assessment should be treated as though it is in a vacuum, focusing on reviewing the company’s current status – not having a preconceived goal. Recommendations from the assessment should focus on change and the future.
A good assessment needs to cover more than just the base technological practices of a company. It should review infrastructure, cybersecurity, support systems, company processes, client experience, and much more.
At COVI, we utilize a five-phase assessment that includes discovery, defining and documenting, analyzing, reporting findings, and making recommendations. By following these five phases, we ensure that shareholders can understand where they are and make informed decisions about what is best for their company’s future every time we complete an IT assessment.